Yesterday's Weapons Forums

I will be back with my story in a day or so
At work now but the last ship I was on we
Spent 90 days on the gun line. And they normally releave you after 30 days .but
That didn't happen for us. This was in
May June and July of 1972.

...part of Operation Linebacker II...?.....my squadron onboard the Saratoga was there....emergency deployment...from April '72 I think till January73....didnt pull back into Mayport till February....that was a loooong cruise...

I will try to make since of what I am going to wright, I am not good at this.
The Klondike AR-22 is/was given a award
For being the best repair ship in the 7 the
Fleet .spent the last half of our cruse in Vung Tau .this turned out to be her last cruise. when we got back to San Diego
We got word she was going to be decommissioned. I was part of the decommissioning crew. Not a fun job.
Anyhow I got word my orders were coming to be sent to the USS Perkins DD 877, and I herd that ship was going to be
DECOMMISSIONED or turned into a reserve training ship. There was no way
I wanted to decommission another ship
Or play war games for the next to yrs.
And stand at attention in my dress whites
Twice a day.
So the same day I checked on board, I asked for a request to transfer off the ship
.I made one cruse with the reserve's. When we pulled into port another 3 class po. Came onboard crying the blues. I asked him what's up. He said he just came off 30 days leave married his girl friend , got a place to live off base. And he
Just got orders to another ship headed for the gun line. I told him I will take those
Orders , so he stayed I left and made my
Second west PAC cruse.
The USS Orlick DD-886 spent more time
At sea than any other ship I was on.
When your on the gun line its pretty much
Non stop work . Every other night its all hands working party you meat a supply ship and take on supply fuel / supplies
/ etc. The next night you hump 5"+38 rap shells to the forward and aft. Magazine s
Then you get to go back and stand your watch.for 4 on 4 off. Around the clock.
The last 3 months there ,every ship that came out to releave use had a breakdown
Of some kind , the last one was damaged in a typhoon that we had to endure as well. But there front gun mount was bent
So back for repair s they went. We did another 30 days, 90 Days in all one shot.
And we fired a hell of a lot of rounds in those 90 days. And I pray they all found
There intended target. And didn't cause
Any unintentional casualties or losses.
CARRY- ON

I sent some pic. To SW. To post for me

And here they are! I edited the images a little.


IMG_20151016_180848_959.jpg [ 119.46 KiB | Viewed 5885 times ]



IMG_20151016_180905_335.jpg [ 123.8 KiB | Viewed 5885 times ]


I heard of Vung Tau when I was in Viet Nam - sounded like a lot of combat involving our "Brown Water Navy" if I may use the term. Genuine jungle & not a pleasant place to be on a good day!

I'm glad you made it back all right, Willie! Ya done good! SW

dittos what hogger said , glad you have joined us here and thank you for sharing , thanks for the photos too , we were young once ...

im going to add that im looking to add hoggers views to my own regarding what we are thankful of , im still working on it a bit but finding the truth in it a little bit at a time ,

Thanks for having me here.
The smoking lamp is lit.

and i have a cigar ....